Somewhere Far Away From Here
by KarasumaFirestorm
Summary: Gordo's life is thrown into upheaval the summer before high school.
1. Default Chapter

Author's note: could it be..? Something new? Why yes, it is! Shock at the new words and sentences! Horror at the sudden appearance of drama! Thrill at the twists and turns, cliffhangers and...guys...named Cliff...  
  
Okay, there're no guys named Cliff (or *are* there?), but I hope you enjoy anyway.  
  
*Karasuma*Firestorm*  
  
***Somewhere Far Away From Here***  
  
When my parents first broke the news, I went into a state of shock. What they were proposing was...well, it was unthinkable.  
  
My grandma, a.k.a. the windsurfing, horseback riding, geriatric bombshell known as 'Gorgeous', had Alzheimer's. And as if my beloved grandmother's debilitating illness wasn't distressing enough, I learned that the three of us would be moving out to Colorado (*Colorado!*) to take care of her. For an indefinite amount of time.  
  
We were leaving in a week.  
  
That meant seven days to pack up everything we owned and ship it off. Seven days to say goodbye.  
  
And then I'd be away in Colorado, *not* starting high school with my friends. No more Hillridge. No more Digital Bean. No more Tudgeman, Parker, or Mr. Dig. No more Kate and Ethan (okay, there was an upside). No more going to that park by my house; no more McGuire family outings that I was invited on because my parents were never home; no more Matt, Jo, and Sam; no more Miranda...  
  
...No more Lizzie.  
  
No more Elizabeth Brooke McGuire, struggling to open her locker every morning, tripping over her shoelace in gym class, blowing her bangs off her forehead in exasperation every time Tudgeman tried to talk to her, looking horrified and insulted all at once every time Kate said something mean. No more of Lizzie's inherent goodness, her wanting to help everyone no matter how awful they were to her. No more of her bad jokes, no more of her sad-little-valley-girl commentary on life. No more of her cheering me up, no more of me cheering her up. No more hugs. No more smiles.  
  
Armed with the information that I might never see her again, I was filled with the reluctant courage to finally tell her the truth, that I loved her. I don't remember when it first came about, but before I knew it, my deep friendship with her had developed into a massive crush that had soon translated into me falling completely in love with my best friend. I'd tried seemingly a thousand times to tell her, but something kept interfering each time. Either some outside force, or my own cowardice. But there was no turning back now. I couldn't leave without her knowing the truth, regardless of the outcome.  
  
Unfortunately for me, Lizzie was halfway through her vacation when I'd first received the news, and so when she finally came back, I only had three days before my departure.  
  
Miranda and I were sitting on Miranda's front stoop, baking in the August sun and talking about our top five favorite movies of all time. It was easier than talking about how I'd probably never see her again. Since she'd been gone in Mexico for half the year anyway, my moving was only going to be harder. She probably knew about my Lizzie issue, seeing as how I probably had it written all over my face. At the very least, she kindly kept it to herself. It wasn't in Miranda's nature to keep a juicy secret to herself, especially one concerning both of her best friends, but I guess she figured that we'd work it out in our own time, and she'd just stand aside. I appreciated it more than she'd ever know.  
  
"So yeah, I think that Save the Last Dance is my number one," Miranda said, leaning back against the railing and lifting her face to the sun.  
  
"Please tell me you're kidding," I said. "That piece of absolute cheese?"  
  
"It was sweet!" Miranda said indignantly, and I was about to launch into a rant on how the 'chick flick' was debasing our entire concept of love, when Mrs. Sanchez stuck her head out the front door and produced the cordless. "Lizzie's on the line."  
  
"Ooh!" Miranda squealed, jumping to her feet. "Is she back already?" She grabbed the phone from her mom, who smiled and disappeared inside again. "Lizzie, where are you?"  
  
I glanced up at her while she paced on the top step. "Really? That's great! Come over!"  
  
Suddenly the smile dropped from her face. "What? That is such bull...no, seriously, tell them you're coming over anyway." She glanced at me. "You only have a few days left..." Her eyes widened. "What? What? No. No! I didn't say anything about anything! I, um..." a furtive glance at me, "I gotta go. Come over if you can. Bye." She clicked the off button abruptly.  
  
I stared at her. "What was that all about?"  
  
"Her parents probably aren't going to let her come over, because they just got home."  
  
"Did you tell her about me?" I asked accusingly.  
  
"No! That's something you have to tell her yourself, you know? I mean, something as monumental with that, it would suck to hear it from a third party."  
  
"Mhmm," I mumbled, and before I could think of anything to say or how to say it, the McGuires' car pulled up to the curb, and Lizzie got out of the passenger seat. "Bye Mom," she said, then ran up the front walk to greet us. "Oh. MY. God. I have missed you guys *sooo* much!" she squealed, throwing her arms first around Miranda and then around me. I hugged her back as tightly as I could, just so glad to see her again and wishing for the millionth time that I didn't have to leave that Saturday.  
  
"So, what have I missed?"  
  
"Oh, you know, nothing big," Miranda said lightly, but suddenly I didn't feel like putting off the truth.  
  
"Actually, Lizzie, I do have something to tell you..." I started to say. Lizzie frowned at me, and Miranda's eyes went wide.  
  
"Uh, is that my mom calling me?" she said, entirely unconvincingly. "I'll be back in a bit!" Miranda ducked inside the house, and I now had no idea what to do. I had two very important, very life-altering things to tell her, but I was faced with a case of total paralyzing fear.  
  
"Gordo?" Lizzie said, peering at me, concerned. "What is it?"  
  
"I...um...well..." My search for adequate words, however, was interrupted by the harsh ringing of the phone, which Miranda had accidentally left outside. Lizzie and I looked at each other, shrugged, then I answered it. "Hello, Sanchez residence."  
  
"David? Is that you?" It was my mom.  
  
"Yeah, it's me, Mom."  
  
"Why are you answering the phone?"  
  
"It's a long story," I said hurriedly, turning my back to Lizzie. "What's up?"  
  
"Your father's on his way over there right now; I need you to come home. There's been a problem with the movers."  
  
"What sort of problem?"  
  
"It looks as though they might have shipped off all of your stuff a few days early..." my mom hedged, and I groaned, slapping my forehead with my hand. "You're kidding."  
  
"I'm afraid not."  
  
"Did they leave me anything?" I said, seeing my dad's car pull up to the curb. "Never mind, Dad's here. I'll see you in a few, bye." I hung up the phone and passed it to Lizzie as I started down the front steps.  
  
"Wait, Gordo, where are you going?" she said.  
  
"Home."  
  
"What's going on? What did you have to tell me?"  
  
"I'll tell you later, tell Miranda I said bye!" I answered, hopping in the car.  
  
Truth was apparently going to have to wait for another day. 


	2. Two

I neglected to include a disclaimer on the last chapter, so two for the price of one.  
  
Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me, I guarantee it.  
  
Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me, I guarantee it.  
  
Yeah, just try and sue me now! :P  
  
*Karasuma*Firestorm*  
  
***Somewhere Far Away From Here***  
  
The movers crisis ended up killing the rest of my afternoon, and before I knew it, it was Thursday, and I had one backpack full of clothes to my name. The rest of my stuff would be waiting for me in Colorado. This was not boding well.  
  
Lizzie called my house around noon. "Miranda and I are going to the movies, wanna come?"  
  
My second to last day in Hillridge, and my best friend wanted to spend our time together sitting in a darkened theater, not talking for two hours. Well, it wasn't her fault, she didn't know that I was leaving. That meant Miranda had kept it to herself, which was both good and bad.  
  
I sighed slightly. "Yeah, sure."  
  
"My mom can come pick you up in about five minutes, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, sure."  
  
"Is 'yeah, sure' all you're gonna say to me?" Lizzie asked, and I could hear the slight trace of irritation in her voice.  
  
"Yeah, sure," I said teasingly, and she groaned and hung up.  
  
I was really going to miss Lizzie, I thought for the billionth time, smoothing out the wrinkles in my t-shirt and checking my reflection in the mirror. I looked so...Gordo. So low-maintenance. I wondered if I could change my identity when I left here. Start being David like I was supposed to be. Get a haircut, stand up a little straighter, maybe join a sport or club or something.  
  
But I couldn't cast my past aside as easily as moving someplace new and adopting my birth name again. To do that, I'd have to first deal with Lizzie. She had to know the truth. There was no holding back. Today was the day.  
  
Mrs. McGuire pulled up to the curb and honked the horn, but I was already halfway out the door. I climbed in the backseat. "Miranda's not coming," Lizzie said. "She just called to say that her mom wanted her to do something, and maybe she'd meet us at the Digital Bean later."  
  
I kept my smile to myself. I knew the real reason why Miranda wasn't coming, she wanted me and Lizzie to have some alone time.  
  
As we pulled to a stop in front of the theater, Lizzie's mom told us she would pick us up in three hours, and Lizzie nodded, rolling her eyes, and hopped from the car. We paid for tickets and popcorn in near silence. I was biding my time, trying to think about the best way to approach things, but I was left with no answers and an overwhelming fear of dread. "Hey, um, Lizzie," I began as we took our seats, but the movie started early, and my words were drowned out by the surround-sound of a soda ad.  
  
No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't bring myself to get into the movie. It was hard to pay attention to much of anything when I was writing a mental script of exactly how to break my news to Lizzie.  
  
"Gordo. Gordo?"  
  
I jolted from my contemplative state, and saw that the end credits were already rolling, and that the theater was empty save for us. "Gordo, are you okay?" Lizzie said, looking at me worriedly.  
  
It was now or never, wasn't it? "Lizzie...remember when I said I had news?" I said. Which bomb should I drop first? That I was in love with her, or that I was moving?  
  
She stared at me. "Yeah."  
  
"Well...um...it's like this. Um..." I coughed. My eyes roamed the theater, taking in empty bags of popcorn that people had left behind, the name of the key grip on the film rolling up the screen. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Why was I such a coward? Either she liked me back, or she didn't. If she did, awesome, fantastic, stellar. If she didn't... Well, if she didn't, I was out of here Saturday anyway.  
  
"Lizzie, I love you." I couldn't quite read the look she was giving me, so I threw in, "I mean, in a romantic way."  
  
There. I'd said it. And not to myself in a mirror, or out loud to an instant message box on the computer screen, but to an actual person. To Lizzie.  
  
She was still staring at me, with this really complicated expression that was filled with more emotions than I could make out. "Oh. Well, I, uh...I sort of already knew--" She knew? Did everyone know? God! "--but I'm glad you felt you could tell me."  
  
"Uh-huh," I said, wondering where this was going.  
  
"The thing is, though, Gordo..." She looked down at her hands, and then back up at me, and this time her hazel eyes were filled with a sad, pitying look. "I love you, too, but only...as a friend. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she added softly.  
  
I swear I could feel my heart sinking. This had been the response I'd been expecting, but hearing it...hearing it was something else entirely. I didn't know what to say, what to do. And I was wishing more than anything that she would stop giving me that puppy-dog look, like 'please don't hate me, I'm sorry you're not good enough for me, you poor fragile little boy.' I wasn't going to break or anything!  
  
I forced myself to shrug slightly, a 'no big deal' gesture, even though we both knew it was a huge deal. "We should get going, your mom's probably waiting."  
  
"Yeah," she mumbled, and followed me out of the theater. As we passed through the doors into the lobby, one of the employees shook his head slightly at me, like he'd heard the whole thing and knew I'd been burned. Fantastic. Even the help thought I was a loser.  
  
We stood outside, me leaning against a wall and staring at the parking lot, Lizzie standing a few feet away, shifting her weight and deliberately not looking at me. I knew exactly what was going through her mind, she was terrified that shooting me down was the equivalent of eliminating my presence from her life. Little did she know that she was half right.  
  
"There's one more thing."  
  
She glanced over at me, still wearing that pained expression. "Hmm?"  
  
"I'm moving. Saturday. To Colorado."  
  
At last, Lizzie's jaw dropped, and she looked horrified. "What? Why?" She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Ohmigod. Not because I--"  
  
"Nah. My grandma's got Alzheimer's. We're going to take care of her. I don't know how long. Maybe forever." I couldn't believe how toneless my voice was. It sounded like I didn't care. Didn't care that I was leaving, didn't care that my grandmother was sick... It wasn't that I didn't care, it was just that I suddenly felt dead inside, and couldn't bother to try and bring emotion to my voice.  
  
Tears welled up in her eyes, and that sparked some life back into me, knowing that she would miss me. "Oh my God, Gordo..." was all she managed to get out before throwing her arms around me and nearly squeezing the life out of me. "This is awful! You can't go; you're my best friend!"  
  
I tried to shrug, but she wasn't giving me breathing room, much less shrugging room. "You've still got Miranda."  
  
"It won't be the same. First she leaves me for half a year, and now you're going..." she wailed. "We were supposed to start high school together! The three of us!"  
  
Lizzie sounded miserable, almost desperate. And then I thought about it. I couldn't be mad at her for not loving me back. That wasn't fair. I was her best friend unconditionally, and that meant standing behind her decisions, whether I agreed or not. And I knew that while she didn't love me the way I loved her, she still needed me. Like now.  
  
I rubbed her back slightly. "Liz, it's going to be okay."  
  
"You don't know that," she said, pulling away from me and sniffling. There was a wet mark on my shoulder where she'd been crying.  
  
"No, I don't know that. But we've been best friends all our lives. You can't change something that huge that easily." I said it very convincingly, but I couldn't help but thinking that when I left Hillridge, I'd be leaving my life behind, and that things might never get back to normal.  
  
Lizzie's mom pulled up then, and honked the horn. We climbed in and drove to my house without so much as a word between us. I knew Lizzie had a lot to think about.  
  
The one thing I couldn't stop thinking about, for the entire car ride and the rest of the night, was Lizzie. Why not me? Was there something terminally wrong with me? I mean, here I was, a guy that had known Lizzie McGuire her entire life, had seen her trip and fall more times than I could count, had seen her at her very best, and at her very worst, and still loved her. She didn't have to fake a personality for me like she'd done with Ethan. And even now, after she'd broken my heart, I'd had to be the strong one for her when her world had gone into upheaval. Wasn't I always in that position, playing her knight in shining armor?  
  
So *why not me*? 


End file.
